The Hara Museum is proud to present a solo exhibition by the French artist Sophie Calle. This exhibition by one of France’s leading contemporary artists consists of two parts. The Last Image (2010) is an installation that weaves together text and photographs taken by the artist about people who have lost the power of sight. Voir la mer (See the sea) (2011) captures on film the expression of persons seeing the ocean for the first time. To the sound of waves, Calle's installations quietly contemplate questions that she has been exploring since her work The Blind in 1986: What is beauty? What does it mean to see? One possible answer provided by a blind man was the spark that propelled the artist to ponder these questions: "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen is the sea."

Calle is largely known for her highly narrative artwork incorporating both photographs and text. She has held solo exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou and other major museums throughout the world, and has represented her country at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and other international art events.

In work revolving around intimate relations with others, Calle weaves together fact and fiction in ways that are fantastic and constantly surprising. And yet the themes which she addresses - identity, communication, memory, perception - are all universal in nature. Fourteen years ago at the Hara Museum, many viewers were moved by Exquisite Pain (1999), an exhibition that incorporated beautiful photographs and embroidered text in a tale about emotional healing through the exchange of heartbreaking experiences with others.

The current exhibition presents Calle's most recent works on vision and perception, subjects that she has explored for many years. Consisting of two parts, The Last Image and Voir la mer, it is a show that caused a stir when exhibited for the first time in Istanbul at the Sabanci Museum (2011). Both are being presented in Japan for the first time. Also included is a special collaborative piece featuring an image from the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes series.

A related exhibition of selected works from the Hara Museum Collection will be on view at Hara Museum ARC (the Hara Museum's annex in Shibukawa, Gunma) and a film screening and talk by the artist at the Institut Français du Japon-Tokyo will also be held.

*image(left)
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011,
color photograph （reference image）
©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo